Connor (In the Company of Snipers Book 5)

by Irish Winters

  Connor stood behind Izza at the NICU window again, his arms wrapped around her as they gazed through the window. A nurse was bathing Jamie while the infant protested loudly.

  “I have something for you,” he whispered.

  “Is it a flashlight?” she teased as she pushed her backside against him in play. Earlier, she’d tried to coax him into her hospital bed, but Connor had more restraint than she did which was probably smart. Her body did need time to heal from childbirth. Common sense didn’t seem to stop them from wanting each other though.

  “Besides that.” He bumped her again with his, umm, flashlight.

  “Is it more thank-you cards?” Izza couldn’t take her eyes off their baby. Jamie had proven to be every bit the fighter her mother was. Her lungs strengthened daily, she slept soundly in between feedings, and she was by far the favorite among the nurses.

  As tiny as she was, she was a force to be reckoned with. The nurses doted on her parents as much as they did her, their story of survival and rescue a definite human-interest story in the hospital as well as the local media. And they weren’t the only ones.

  Stores up and down the Wasatch Front donated gifts galore. Some kind person started an account at a local credit union for them. People sent cards and flowers until the hospital was forced to move the many pink bouquets and arrangements to the cafeteria for display. And baby blankets? Jamie had enough pink quilts, crocheted afghans and frilly blankets to stock her own boutique. Connor and Izza spent most of their mornings writing thank you cards to the generous people of Utah while Jamie grew stronger.

  “I do have more cards, but no. This is better.” Connor held a huge ruby ring in front of Izza. “I don’t know for sure, but I think red is your color. You needed something full of fire, not something pasty white like boring old diamonds.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes brimmed with moisture. “Damn it, Connor. Mom had a ruby ring.”

  “Would you marry me?” he asked, his voice husky. He lifted the ring from her fingers and slid it over the knuckle of the ring finger on her left hand. “All I know is I can’t live without you. I knew it the first time I saw you in Iraq. I’m done trying to.”

  All those mean words out of her mouth came back to her now. She searched his eyes for the slightest hint of hesitation or anger. He of all people should be at least a little bit mad at her. “Are you sure? I mean, after all I’ve said and done to you—”

  “Yes. Please say—”

  “No.” She handed the ring back, shaking her head. Marriage scared her. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t work. She’d seen what happened when people got married. People died and the ones left behind went crazy. “I can’t marry you. We’ve only known each other a short time, and most of that was in Iraq.”

  Connor’s eyes widened with disbelief. Shock maybe, but no, she couldn’t put him through that.

  “Just because we did something stupid in Iraq, and just because we were stuck in the middle of the desert for a few days doesn’t mean we should get married.” Her eyes swelled with tears. With each excuse her voice grew tighter and sadder. “And just because we made a baby together doesn’t mean you have to marry me.”

  He tipped her chin up. “Marry me or not, I’m not leaving your side unless you tell me to go. Is that what you’re saying? Do you want me to leave?”

  “No.” She blinked through the confusion in her heart. God, no. Don’t you dare leave.

  “Izza,” he said sternly. “I’m not asking you to marry me because we made a baby, although I think that’s a pretty damned good reason. I’m asking you to marry me because you’re my life. Do you understand? You are not just a wild fling in the middle of a war. You are everything to me. My sun. My moon. And every last one of my stars. And I did see fireworks that first night. God knows I saw fireworks. That’s how worlds are made, Izza, and that’s exactly what we were making. Look at that little girl we made. She’s our world, isn’t she?”

  She nodded, still blinking hard just to be able to see him clearly. It didn’t make sense. How could anyone love her? Especially after—

  “And I don’t have to marry you, Miss Ramos. I want to marry you. With all my faults and failures, I hoped you’d want me, too.”

  “I do.” With a crush she hugged him tight, her hard head pressed against his chest so she could hear his heart. Wow, it was pounding as hard as hers. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to. I don’t want you to—”

  “Shush.” He squeezed her tightly. “You know me better than that. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. What’s really going on here? I know you love me.”

  “I’ve been so mean.” Now the tears really came. “I’ve hit and kicked you and—”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “And I’m afraid.”

  He waited.

  “I’m afraid I might be one of those abusers, too, like kids who turn out to be just like their parents. Like my dad. And I couldn’t bear to put you through what I’ve lived through. And I’m scared I might hurt Jamie. And she’s so little and—”

  Her world caved in. Maybe Connor should be the one who raised Jamie. Maybe she was the unworthy one who didn’t deserve the perfect child they’d helped create.

  He wrapped his arms around her like a blanket. “Do you trust me?” he asked softly.

  “Yes.” Her instant answer came strong and unequivocally into his shirt.

  “You don’t want to hit me anymore, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And I know for sure you would never hurt Jamie.”

  She gulped. There was no word for the depth of love in her heart for that tiny little girl.

  He held her tight. “So here’s the deal. I’ll let you spend the rest of your life making it up to me.”

  She sobbed. “But I don’t deserve you.”

  “Listen.” He could hardly talk, his voice hoarse and low. “If you don’t want to marry me I guess that’s the way it is. Will you still come live with me?”

  “But—”

  Connor stopped asking difficult questions and just rocked her. Exhausted from her bath, little Jamie lay asleep in her isolette just feet away while her mother and father figured out what on earth they were going to do with each other.

  “Think about it,” he whispered. “I’ve got this gorgeous ruby ring—”

  She pushed her hair off her face and grabbed a handful of nearby tissues. With a loud honk, Izza blew her nose and wiped her eyes. He held his palm out, the ruby hot and sparkling in his hand. She snatched it and stuck it on her ring finger, blinking another cascade of tears away. There was only one way this could go down. She had to have him in her life.

  “I will marry you, Connor Maher.” She drew in a huge breath. “If you forgive me.”

  He pulled her under his chin. Finally, she nestled quietly where she belonged.

  “If that’s what you need to hear, then yes, I forgive you. But there is nothing to forgive. We’re still going to argue. We’re going to fight. And I’m looking forward to our first round of make up sex. That’s the way life is.” He bumped her again with his, umm, flashlight. “I love you, Izza. I always have. I always will. One of these days, I’m going to be able to show you just how much.”

  A sigh swelled up from the soles of her feet, and Izza was finally free. “You already have.”

  Thirty

  Finally Connor and Izza were allowed to hold their daughter. It was either the emotion of the moment or the fact they were both still recuperating from their surgeries, but both bawled like babies when they held little Jamie for the first time.

  Connor wiped his face. “She looks just like you.”

  “But she’s got your nose. And look at her feet.” Izza pulled the blanket away from the baby’s spindly legs.

  “Are you saying they’re big?” He kissed the tiny wrinkled feet at his fingertips. They looked like they belonged to a fairy child from another world.

  “No, but look at her toes. They’re long. Jus
t like yours.” Izza was all smiles through her tears. Tired and still healing, she couldn’t contain her joy. It leaked from her eyes like a drippy garden faucet.

  Connor was busy taking pictures with his cell phone, snapping one after the other when Alex knocked on the door and entered with a vase full of pink roses and a teddy bear. “How’s the happy family?”

  She beamed at her boss’s kind attention. “Do you want to hold her?”

  “Sure.” Alex set the vase on the counter and washed his hands in the rest room before he scooped the tiny girl into his arms. His eyes were soft as he gazed down at the precious bundle. “My goodness. I forgot babies came this small. She looks like you, Izza.”

  “Nah. She’s beautiful.” Izza couldn’t take her eyes off her daughter.

  Alex settled on the couch. “I just hired Cassidy for the Seattle office.”

  “She’ll do a good job.” Connor glanced at Izza for a smart assed comment, but she just winked back at him with a smile and a shrug. He probably needed to speak with Cassidy in person someday, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what he’d say. They’d only just met. Hadn’t even been on a real date. Yet.

  “She said to tell you congratulations on your new wife and daughter. What are your plans? Will you kids be coming back to Alexandria or moving to Seattle?”

  “Alexandria.” Izza’s answer was quick and sure. “You don’t have a rule about married agents working out of the same office, do you?”

  Alex’s brow lifted. “Wouldn’t matter if I did, would it?”

  “No, not really.” Izza had no problem standing up to Alex. It made Connor smile. The Alexandria office would never be the same.

  “She isn’t coming back to work for a while, though.” Connor had his arm around his intended wife’s shoulders. “We’re going to get married in Boston next month so make room on your schedule for a wedding. After that, she’s staying home with Jamie.”

  “Take whatever maternity leave you need.” Alex gazed down at the sleeping child in the crook of his arm. “Get your family settled. Make sure you take a honeymoon somewhere between all the diapers and midnight feedings. Work will always keep.”

  “Umm, Alex?” Izza’s eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. Again. “Could I ask you a favor?”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “You look like the perfect grandfather. I was wondering. Connor said you would, but I’m not sure, and, umm, would you, I mean would you give me away on my wedding day? I don’t know where my old man is, and I don’t think he’d do it anyway, and I don’t really want him to, and—”

  “You bet,” Alex answered quick and sure, blinking and smiling. And blinking again. “There isn’t anything I’d love more, Izza.”

  She slipped out of her bed and made her way slowly across the few steps between them. With a tired huff she sat next to Alex. Izza looked up at her boss, her brown eyes full of liquid love. “You are a very good man.” With that soft pronouncement, she gave him a big hug.

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he said, pressing Izza to his side.

  Connor’s eyes teared up. Here was this feisty woman in her cotton nightgown, the same one who used to be so angry at the world, crying in his boss’s arms like a little girl. He had to turn from the tender scene. With a cough, he sat on the edge of the bed and changed the subject. “Did you ever figure out who poisoned Ramirez?”

  Alex released Izza and handed the sleeping infant back to her mother. “Yes. Quinones had family working in the jail’s kitchen. He injected an overdose of bark scorpion venom into Ramirez’s coffee. Miguel didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Man, those people were blood thirsty,” Connor exclaimed. “Their solution for every problem was to kill somebody.”

  “They’re finished for a while. The Mexican government’s going after the rest of Javier’s business. They’ve been after him for years. Last I heard from Scott Sylvane, they’d burned both the Ramirez and Quinones haciendas to the ground. They found seventeen bodies at the quarry.”

  “If Ramirez didn’t kidnap us, who did?”

  “His wife. Alejandra was playing both sides, only she didn’t know Ramirez was dead when she offered to trade Izza for him. You two were only kidnapped because she needed leverage in case things didn’t go the way she planned with her brother. Ibarra was the linchpin. He stayed in touch with the old Ramirez guards as well as the Quinones army. With him on her side, either way, she was guaranteed to come out on top.”

  “She would have turned on her own brother?” Izza asked.

  “Hell, yes. A mother who could kill her own children has no moral boundaries,” Alex explained.

  “Where’s Ibarra now?” Connor wanted to know.

  But Alex saw through his junior agent’s question. “You shot four of them. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Just tying up a loose end,” Connor countered, his voice steel. “Seems to me that’s what you’d do.”

  “Leave it alone, Connor. Ibarra is in a deep dark federal hole. He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  “Good. Maybe the cartel really is out of business then.”

  “For now,” Alex answered. “Someone will try it again eventually. I’ve got to give Ramirez credit for one thing, though.”

  Connor’s eyebrows lifted. “What the hell for? He’s the reason Morgan’s dead.”

  “Yes, but he also loved his daughters enough to ask for help,” Alex said thoughtfully. “Drug lords are very proud men. Not many would’ve done that.”

  Connor glanced at his perfect little girl. Jamie’s lips were squeezed together in the cutest bow. Izza had rubbed a drop of baby oil on the infant’s tiny head and combed her hair into a peak. His heart melted at the sight of the women in his life. Yeah. He’d do anything for them, too. Maybe he did understand Miguel Ramirez after all.

  “Another thing you’ll be surprised to know,” Alex said. “Remember Juanita? The nanny? Who do you think she was?”

  Izza cringed. “Please don’t tell me she was Alejandra and Javier’s older sister. That would be just plain disgusting.”

  “Oh, no. She was Miguel’s mother’s sister – his aunt. After the smoke cleared, she took Christina and Sophia home to live with her and her husband in Juarez. She over-nighted a dozen chicken tamales to me.”

  “She did?” Izza asked. “Why?”

  “Because I asked her to move to America,” Alex said. “She turned me down with the tamales. Said there was no reason to leave the country she loves. Mexico has seen worse demons than Alejandra and her brother. If Mexico could endure them, so would she.”

  “Guess there’s hope after all,” Connor muttered. After all he’d heard about the battle at the Ramirez hacienda, he’d never have believed it. “What’s next?”

  Alex pushed to his feet. “I’m flying home in a couple days with Rory. How long until you and your baby are released, Izza?”

  “Tomorrow. Connor’s hotel room is nearby. We might spend a few days resting before we fly home.”

  Connor grinned. A very important word had just rolled off Izza’s lips like it was no big deal. That bachelor pad of his was due for a definite makeover. Heck, maybe it was time to buy a real house. Ahem, home.

  Alex pulled a gold chain out of his inside jacket pocket. “This was on the floor at the hangar where we found you. Thought you might want it back.”

  Izza laid Jamie across her lap and took the locket lovingly back into her fingers.

  “Is that your grandmother’s picture?”

  “No. I don’t have a clue who she is.”

  Alex raised a brow. “Isn’t it your locket?”

  “It is now. Connor and I found it when we were exploring our cave. Look at this.” Izza showed Alex the simple declaration of love etched inside the locket cover. “I know it sounds really dumb, but it’s like my brother sent me a message when I needed it most.” She fastened the gold chain around her neck again. “Quite the coincidence, huh?”

  Alex put his arm back arou
nd her in a fatherly hug, maybe the first she’d ever known. “I don’t believe in coincidence. My wife taught me that. Everything happens for a reason.”

  Izza smiled across the room, her eyes aglitter with fresh tears. “I think she’s right.”

  Connor bit his lip and blinked like crazy.

  Alex stood beneath the hot Utah sun again in somber reverence with Connor at the Pines of the Wasatch Memorial Park. Izza couldn’t attend because of the baby. Mark and Libby were already back east, but Roy insisted he could make it to the service. He also insisted on a motorized wheelchair, an excellent idea considering the rolling lawn and lush green grass of the cemetery.

  “He would’ve been one of my boys,” he muttered angrily when they’d first arrived at the carefully prepared gravesite. “Damn it. Morgan was already one too many.”

  Alex silently agreed. Losing agents in the line of duty was never easy. A gentle breeze filtered through the pines and honey locusts that lined the cobbled streets. The foray into Mexico had come at too high a cost. Morgan Humphrey’s funeral at Arlington was hard enough. Alex had flown home with the body for that one. Another good young man laid to rest too damn soon. Listening to his sister cry at the graveside reminded Alex how valiant his men were. How brave. How rare.

  They didn’t have to do any of this. They didn’t owe their country anything more than time already served, and yet they’d placed themselves in harm’s way by joining a company that still fought the good fight, that still believed in uncommon truths like right and wrong. Truth. Justice. American dreams.

  “The hearse is here,” Connor whispered confidentially. Alex felt him stiffen when it rolled to the edge of the curb. Ordinarily, he and Connor would’ve been pallbearers. Not today. An army of young men in white shirts and ties advanced to the rear of the vehicle the same as a military honor guard would have done. They did things differently in Utah, but these young men looked the same. Standing tall to do their duty. Honorable. Proud.

  The preacher or whatever he was stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen. Elder Coltrane will now dedicate the grave.” Alex bowed his head as the prayer was offered. He had to give the Mormons credit. They did know how to find comfort and solace, even in the middle of heart breaking tragedy.